August 9, 2019
by Warren L. Nelson
In the wake of Britain seizing an Iranian tanker, Iran has now seized three foreign oil tankers in the Persian Gulf, charging them all with legal violations.
But there may be two separate issues involved here, and the three seizures may not be all “hostage-takings,” as many have speculated.
The one clear hostage is the Stena Impero, a British-flagged ship seized in retaliation for the seizure of an Iranian tanker, Grace 1, at Gibraltar. However, the vessel’s British-connection is only the flag. The ship is owned by a Swedish company, Stena Bulk, so the seizure doesn’t help Iran’s relations with the EU, where Sweden has historically not been hostile to Iran. Furthermore, the crew is overwhelmingly Indian, and the vocal families of the crewmen have been raising the level of anger against Iran within India.
There have been no developments the past month with regard to the Stena Impero, held at Bandar Abbas, and the Iranian ship, Grace 1, still detained at Gibraltar.
Gibraltar has not yet scheduled a trial over charges that the Grace 1 was carrying oil to Syria in violation of years-old EU sanctions. And Iran has taken no action on its charges that the Stena Impero a) collided with an Iranian fishing boat and left the scene despite “badly” injuring some of the crewmen; b) then tried to sail into the Persian Gulf through the outbound shipping lane; and c) turned off the transponder that broadcasts its location after the collision.
The Grace 1 was seized by Gibraltar police and British Marines on July 4. On July 14, Iran seized the small Panama-flagged MT Riah, which it said was smuggling Iranian fuel across the Persian Gulf for sale. Iran then took possession of the Stena Impero on July 19. And on July 30, Iran seized another small tanker, which it said was also smuggling Iranian oil. It has not given the name or flag of that ship (but Britain said all British-flagged ships were accounted for).
On the seizures, Foreign Minister Mohammad-Javad Zarif said, “Iran used to forgo some maritime offenses [in the Persian Gulf] but will never close its eyes anymore.” He then said, “Iran is responsible for the security and safety of the Strait of Hormuz and the region,” which is not true. Parts of the shipping lanes through the Strait of Hormuz go through Iranian territorial waters, but parts go through Omani waters. And the parts in the narrowest segment of the strait are entirely within Omani waters (See map above.).
Iran said the Riah was UAE-owned and the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) said the unnamed vessel was Iraqi-owned. Both the UAE and Iraq, however, denied any links to the seized ships. There would be no political rational for Iran to seize an Iraqi-owned ship, which suggested the seizure might not be political. Furthermore, the mysterious nature of the two ships made it quite possible that they were in fact engaged in smuggling as Iran charged and had nothing whatsoever to do with the cases of the Stena Impero and Grace 1.
Maritime websites show Riah is the fourth name that vessel has had in the last decade. Panama announced it had de-flagged the ship for “violating international regulations deliberately.”
Adding to the confusion, Bloomberg News interviewed a man who said he heads the firm that operates the seized ship.
Rishi Kumar (an Indian name, though Bloomberg did not give his nationality) said he heads KRB Petrochemicals, which is based in Sharjah, one of the emirates that is part of the UAE. He denied the ship was engaged in smuggling and also denied it had any fuel on board when seized. He said it was sailing empty to Oman to take on a load of fuel to be shipped to Somalia.
Kumar said the Riah is owned by Riah Shipping & Trading Inc., which is based in Iraq, though the Iraqi government has not claimed any link.
Ship tracking data show that the Riah regularly shuttles through the strait, and its route suggests it loads Iranian oil products in the nearby Gulf of Oman and transfers the fuel to other vessels off the coast of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates, according to Tel Aviv-based maritime analysis firm Windward.
Kumar told Bloomberg his firm hasn’t been asked to use the Riah to transport Iranian oil since its charter contract started on June 15.
He said the Riah was in the Strait of Hormuz and sailing into the Persian Gulf July 14 when four small boats approached it near Iran’s Qeshm Island. Iranian forces boarded the ship, “put a gun to the captain” and ordered the crew to lie on the deck, Kumar said. They disabled the engine and towed the vessel to Iran, he said.
The Swedish firm owning the Stena Impero has issued repeated bulletins on the seizure and repeated complaints about Iran’s conduct. It has called the seizure “unacceptable and unjustifiable.” Three weeks after the seizure, it said Iran still has not replied to the firm’s request to visit the vessel and crew, although it said a Finnish consular officer had been allowed to visit the vessel on a request by Latvia; one of the crewmen is Latvian.
The Indian government said its consular officers had been able to meet the 18 Indian crewmen. It said Iran had freed nine of the 12 Indian crewmen on the Riah, but none of the 18 Indians on the Stena Impero.
On July 30, Erik Hanell, president of Stena Bulk, said in English, “There is no evidence of a collision involving the Stena Impero, and at the time of the seizure the vessel was well within the inbound traffic separation scheme and out-with [outside] Iranian territorial waters. All required navigational equipment, including transponders, was fully functioning, in compliance with maritime regulations.”
British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said that publicly available information from the ship’s tracking data showed the vessel was actually in Omani waters when it was forced to change direction and sail north to Iran. (Oman has maintained complete silence on the incident.)
Many commentators have said the obvious solution to the seizures of the British and Iranian tankers is just to release them simultaneously. But both governments have said no to that idea.
British officials say they are unwilling to bow to an Iranian hostage scheme, while Iranian officials insist the British ship was seized for violations of maritime law and the Grace 1’s seizure was political and thus no trade is warranted.
Iran’s Mehr news agency has quoted the Indian captain of the Grace 1 as saying the British Marines who captured his ship used “excessive force.” Specifically, he said they forced his crewmen to kneel on the deck at gunpoint. That is just what the Pasdaran did last year when they captured two small US Navy vessels near Farsi Island with several US sailors on board. (Mehr didn’t say how it managed to talk to the captain. No other news agency has been able to do that.)
Mohammad Mohammadi-Golpayegani, long-time chief of staff to the Supreme Leader, said Britain had sent a mediator to Tehran to “plead for their ship to be freed.” Britain said no one had been sent to Tehran.
Former Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Velayati, the chief foreign policy aide to the Supreme Leader, said the seizure of the Stena Impero and the earlier downing of a US drone are “a turning point in the history of the struggle of Muslims.” That general theme, coupled with claims that the two actions were astounding professional achievements by the Iranian military, have been heard repeatedly from Iranian officials in recent weeks.
A number of Iranians have also taken great joy at the idea that the two actions show that Iran is able to take pokes at the major powers without suffering any consequences. Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, secretary of the Council of Guardians, said the two incidents show that the Pasdaran are “like a thorn in the eyes of our enemies” and show that “Iran’s response to any of their bullying will be decisive, rapid and will make them regret their actions.”
Many Iranian officials have been careful to say that there was no link between the seizure of the Grace 1 by Gibraltar and the seizure of the Stena Impero by Iran. But Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani did the opposite, directly linking the two seizures. “The British committed piracy, and we responded to it,” he told the Majlis two days after Iran seized the British ship.
BP (which started as the Anglo-Persian Oil Company more than a century ago) announced that it is not sending any of the tankers it owns into the Persian Gulf. It is, however, chartering tankers to pick up oil cargoes in the Persian Gulf.
Meanwhile, on the issue of the US drone that Iran shot down in June, the US Navy is now accusing Iran of lying about the second part of its story on the shootdown. Iran said it shot down the drone a) over Iranian territorial waters and b) after transmitting several radio warnings about the drone.
The US Navy immediately denied the drone was over Iranian waters, saying it was over international waters. Last month, the US Navy issued another statement contradicting Iran on the radio warnings.
Navy Captain Bill Urban, a spokesman for the US Central Command (CENTCOM) in Bahrain, said there were “six different occasions where Iranian air defense stations queried or warned US aircraft and [unmanned aerial vehicles] on the international guard radio channel” in the 12 hours prior to and following the shootdown.
“None were recorded or reported by the RQ-4 that was shot down in international airspace in the vicinity of the Strait of Hormuz, and none were received, reported or recorded by any other aircraft at the time of the shootdown,” Urban said.